


Underneath it all

by wallflow3r



Series: Seen and unseen [4]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Body Worship, Dominant Beth, Erections, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Feels, Finger Sucking, Kissing, Licking, Nudity, POV Beth Greene, POV Daryl Dixon, Past Abuse, Porn with Feelings, Rough Sex, Scars, Sex, Smut, Swearing, Tongues, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, bethyl, come tasting, prison era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-27 23:10:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12592632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallflow3r/pseuds/wallflow3r
Summary: Daryl lets Beth see his back for the first time, but her reaction isn't what he expects.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Coco04 for being the best beta in the world, and LeighJ too, you both encourage me to keep writing. 
> 
> So, he's my first attempt at angst! Has anyone seen my comfort zone?

There are some things Daryl Dixon just doesn't get. He doesn't get why in this god forsaken world Beth Green loves him. But she does. He doesn't get how she puts up with him when he's such an asshole. But she does. And what he really doesn't get is why she wants him running his dirty hands all over her flawless skin. But she does.

Every time he catches a glimpse of his gnarled and marked back glaring at him in the mirror he wrinkles his nose in disgust. It's ugly, like every other part of his life. Like his damn soul.

What he doesn't get is that ever since he told Beth that he loves her, ever since he really let her love him, he doesn't feel quite as ugly as before.

Merle's voice in his head berating him when he makes a mistake and reminding him that he's no good gets quieter every day. And it's getting drowned out by Beth's voice in his ear whispering sweet nothing's in the morning. They are anything but nothings. _I love you, Daryl Dixon. I'm yours, Daryl. An' you're mine._ Those moments with Beth are ones he wants to keep repeating. They play over and over in his head like he can't believe they happened to him.

What people don’t see is that Daryl Dixon has a damn near eidetic memory. That's why he's so good at tracking because he can't forget a thing he's seen or heard even if he wanted to. And they’re mostly things he wishes he could forget.

So many ugly memories are seared across the inside of his skull and they play on repeat. The most violent and the most upsetting fighting for top billing in his nightmares. But since he's been spending his nights next to Beth they're not so vivid. They fade from technicolour to black and white. Every day that he gets to spend in the warmth of her light his soul feels a little less cold.

Now his days are punctuated with her kisses and ‘ _I love you’_ s. In the morning, when she sees him in her cell the first thing she does is smile and kiss him, and before they leave to go about their days she kisses him again and says 'I love you'. Every single day. To the point where he’s waiting for her to kiss him before he feels he can leave. He’s not just become used to the constant affection, he craves it.

Carol says she has noticed a change in him. She says he's like a different person, he's so much _happier_. She puts it down to the security of their home and his new pivotal role in the group. A part of him wishes he could tell her that his happy place isn’t the walls of the prison, that it's his girl inside them. But he isn't quite ready to share what they have with the family just yet. There's something comforting in knowing that it’s theirs and theirs alone.

 

This morning, like every morning now, he wakes before she does with his arms wrapped around her tightly. He knows it’s tempting fate to sleep in her cell. That they’re risking getting caught. That anyone could walk in and find him in her cell with her curled against his chest, skin to skin. But ever since he told her that he loves her, and became a trembling mess in her arms, he hasn’t been able to leave her to go and sleep in his own cell, cold and alone. If something were to happen in the night then they’d be discovered. Maybe it’s that he’s starting to feel so safe here that he doesn’t think anything will happen, that’s there’s nothing to worry about. Or maybe he knows that if anything does happen then he needs to be right here so that he can make sure she’s safe. That even going the small distance from his own cell is too far. Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s never slept as well as he does when her warm body is pressed against his.

He tries not to wake her as he untangles their bodies carefully and scoots forwards to sit on the edge of her cot. Finding his jeans discarded on the floor, he pulls them on and then leans over to put his boots on.  

All of a sudden, he feels a warm hand stroke up his spine and it's as though a bucket of ice hits him. His back is exposed. She’s awake and she can see everything, all of the belt marks and cigarette burns from where his dad bounced between using him as a punching bag and a fucking ashtray.

He jerks away from her touch violently, twisting around to the end of the bed with his back turned away from her. His face flushes deep with embarrassment and the familiar sick feeling of shame spreads through his body from head to toe.

Beth lets out a little gasp that draws his eyes up at her through his fringe from where he sits with his head bowed deep between his shoulders.

Her sleepy eyes are blinking back at him. She’s more than a little startled by his reaction and her brow starts to crease with concern.

"You alright?" She asks softly, making to shuffle forward but she stops suddenly as soon as she sees his entire body jerk back away from her for a second time.

Her hands twitch nervously on the blanket in her lap, where she’s sitting up now with her naked chest bared to him. She places her hands flat down on the blanket, ceasing their movement, as though not to spook him further.

His entire body vibrates with shame and frustration as he looks down and away from her. This is their time together and he’s ruining it by being so fucked up.

"I’m sorry, Daryl," she says gently.

His stomach flips over and he thinks he might be sick. _She’s_ sorry?

"You ain't got nothin’ to be sorry for," he grits out. His face twists in building anger at himself. Now he’s gone and made her feel like she’s done something wrong when he’s the one that’s wrong.

"Is it ‘cause of your back?" She asks in a whisper, as though she's afraid to ask the question but forces herself not to shy away. She's so much braver than anyone gives her credit for.

He grunts in response. He feels so damn exposed even though he’s wearing more clothes than she is. His thumb raises up to his mouth nervously and he starts to gnaw at it.

"You don't have to hide them from me, Daryl. I've got scars too."

His eyes flick up to see her cradling her wrist and rubbing the scar with her thumb as her mouth twists to the side.

"'S not the same."

"No, it’s not," Her hands stop their gentle motions and she looks back up at him. "I did this to myself but somebody did those to you."

His eyes widen in shock.

"Beth, I didn't mean-"

"I know you didn’t," She cuts him off. "But I can't imagine how it must feel to have someone cause you that much pain."

He's suddenly finding it hard to breathe. His throat feels like its closing up and his heart is threatening to beat out of his chest. He knows what’s coming next.

"Who did that to you?”

He wants the ground to swallow him up. He wants to get on his bike and ride away with no destination in mind. But when he looks up she's looking at him with so much patience and love he is finally able to catch his breath. If she really wants to know what his life was before all this, who he is underneath it all, then he’s not gonna hide it from her.

"My dad. Was a mean drunk. Used t' beat on me an' Merle when we was kids. An’ my ma. Then she died and Merle left an' it was jus' me. Didn’ make him any less mean, jus' had less to take it out on."

He looks up nervously and catches Beth’s mouth hanging open in abject horror. She slams it shut when his eyes dart up to her face but he can still see the anguish in her eyes.

His stomach flips over again with dread. What is she gonna say to that? How is she gonna look at him now?

"You're amazin'" she murmurs.

He frowns at her in confusion. He wasn't expecting that.

"Everythin' that you've been through an' you're still so strong. You're a force to be reckoned with, Daryl Dixon. Nothing can stop you."

All he can do is stare at her. How in the hell does she see his weakness and call it a strength? This girl could squeeze diamonds out of coal with her relentless optimism.

"An' if your daddy was still alive I'd shoot him with your crossbow for what he did to you," she says fiercely.

He snorts. At least now he has the wrath of Beth Green to protect him.

"Can I..." she starts but then stops herself. He watches her mouth falling open and closed like a goldfish as she struggles to find her words.

"Can you what?"

"Can I see?” She asks, then adds quickly, “Only if it won't make you feel uncomfortable."

He scrunches his face up in revulsion, “Why’d you wanna? It’s- _I’m_ disgustin’”

“Not to me”

For a moment everything stands still and his heart beat pounds in his ears relentlessly. To say he feels uncomfortable is the biggest understatement of all time. The thought of her looking at his back makes his skin crawl. He’s staring at her blankly, his eyes shuttered through years of hiding and numbing his emotions and she’s looking back at him with her open and trusting gaze. He knows in this moment they’ve come to a crossroads. She won’t push him, he knows she won’t. But now that the question has been asked there’s no turning back.

When they started this he would have yelled at her, stormed off and gone hunting for a week. Closed in on himself and shut her out. Maybe ended it, before he really even knew what it was. But he’s different now. He doesn’t yell. He doesn’t storm off. He doesn’t want to shut her out. They’ve come this far together. She's brought him this far. Somehow this feels like the last hurdle. The last dark and twisted piece of himself that he's still keeping hidden from her. He wonders, would it be so bad to give himself to her completely, scars and all?

He nods and then shuffles forward so that he's sat on the edge of the bed, turning his back to face her. He takes a few deep breaths and tries to relax because he can feel that every muscle in his body is clenched tight.

She leans forwards, suddenly so close he can feel her inner thighs framing his hips. The wet heat of her breath ghosts against the back of his neck. He fights to suppress a shiver that runs down his spine as his mutilated back is fully exposed before her eyes for the first time.

To her credit she doesn’t gasp. Her hands come up to rest gently on top of his shoulders, framing his neck where she places a light reassuring kiss.

He's so damn tense that he's vibrating and his face is burning with shame, but when he feels her soft and supple lips touch his skin his focus turns to her. He’s the one who went and claimed her. When he’d done that he hadn’t thought about how it would be a two way street, but it is and he isn’t in the habit of denying his girl what she wants.

He can sense her fingers hovering just millimetres from his scarred flesh.

"You can touch 'em. If you want to."

Gingerly, her soft finger tips trace the belt mark slashed across his shoulder blade. He grinds his teeth and forces himself not to flinch as her fingers begin to explore their way down his back curiously.

This somehow feels like the most intimate thing they’ve ever done. He's had his tongue in her pussy. She's had her fingers and her mouth wrapped around his cock. They've fucked in a multitude of positions. He's filled every hole. He's come inside her. They’ve said 'I love you'. But somehow it's this, somehow this feels like she's stroking his soul. Being touched _there_ feels so raw it almost hurts.

Maybe it's because he has never willingly shown his scars to anyone before. Maybe it's because this is his first time.  At first it feels uncomfortable and intrusive. Not quite enough to make him ask her to stop but it doesn't feel good.

Until it does.

Her hot wet tongue pokes out and slowly licks the poker burn in the middle of his back. That doesn't feel unpleasant at all. Hot breath marks her journey as she moves back up to the belt mark on his shoulder, and again her tongue flicks out to lick the scar tissue. Each lash of her tongue makes his skin tingle and sends a rush down to his hardening cock.

He lets out a low groan.

Straight away her hands fly up like his skin is too hot to touch.

"Don't gotta stop," he murmurs, "Felt good. What you was doin’."

“You like that?”

He can hear the smile in her voice, and it causes his mouth to twitch.

“Yeah.”

“You deserve to feel good, Daryl,” she whispers into his ear in that breathy tone that undoes him every time, “You make me feel good all the time.”

The breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding blows out of him and he chews on the inside of his bottom lip, this time not from anxiety but with a different kind of tension.

With a gentle squeeze of his shoulders, she resumes her pilgrimage across his back with the swirl of her tongue over a gash of raised flesh.

His tight and puckered skin, normally just a dull numb layer covering his muscles, tingles with warmth under the worship of her tongue. Each ridged scar and pocked mark feels as though it's being set on fire as she slashes and burns the dead fields of his back to plant a new garden of her own. It's as though she's pouring a thick layer of herself and her love onto his skin and massaging it in with her tongue.

Her tongue which has licked the roof of his mouth and his teeth as well as the tender flesh of his cock from tip to base. That same wicked tongue is resurrecting the tortured flesh on his back and igniting it with hot pleasure that runs straight down to his cock.

When she’s done, she leans forward to wrap him in a hug and he feels her hard nipples against his oversensitive flesh as her bare chest covers his naked back.

He grabs her hand in his and raises it up to kiss her fingers one at a time. The fingers that just stroked his raw soul and turned him inside out. There is no part of him she hasn't seen. No part of him she hasn’t loved.

He doesn’t get how she can make him feel better about something that's been eating him up since he was a kid and give him a raging hard on at the same time.

With the tips of her fingers still on his lips, he grabs her other hand and presses it down onto the raging dick straining under his jeans. He knows she gets off on seeing the effect she has on him. How he loses control around her. She says it makes her feel sexy when he gets hard just from kissing her.

She moans thickly against his throat and only makes it halfway around his side before he reaches over and drags her onto his lap. Landing heavily, her hot naked cunt presses down onto his stirring dick through his jeans.

His returning grunt is cut off as her mouth claims his hungrily, and his hot and heavy hands fly up to cover her back. Her bare skin feels smooth and soft beneath his squeezing fingers, and when her tongue pushes past his lips to swirl against his, he hums and his mouth breaks into a grin.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Coco04 for being my kick ass beta and to LeighJ for helping me get unstuck ;)

As Beth feels Daryl grin into their kiss, her chest feels fit to burst and her own face pulls into a wide smile. Her eyes lock onto his when their mouths fall apart.

“I wanna make you feel good, Daryl,” she whispers against his jaw, “You make me feel so good.”

Ever since they started this, Beth can’t stop smiling. She walks around the prison with a grin plastered on her face like she’s just won the lottery. That’s because she feels like she has. Except she’s won something so much better than hard cold cash; she’s gone and bagged herself Daryl Dixon. The bravest and most decent man she’s ever set eyes on. There’s only one thing that can wipe the smile off her face, and that’s when she’s reminded that Daryl doesn’t think he’s worth anything at all.

“Girl, you naked in my lap, there’s nothin’ feels as good as that,” he growls into her ear, his jaw vibrating against hers and straight down to her bare pussy. How can it be possible to be turned on so much just by someone’s voice?

“We’ll see,” she grins against his lips before kissing him again.

He leans into her mouth eagerly, cradling the back of her head as he loses a hand to her messy morning waves. When she deepens the kiss by sliding her tongue back into his mouth he sucks on it mercilessly. Her soft moan vibrating down his throat turns high and loud as he reaches between them to push a finger inside her, and feels her dripping wetness. His head tips back with a groan to look at her with pupils blown wide.

“You’re _so fucking wet_ ,” he whispers brokenly, his eyes burning into hers.

The awe in his face makes her stomach flip. Like he can’t believe it’s all for him, that she wants him _that_ much. But the evidence is running down the palm of his hand.

“ _You_ _make me_ so wet,” she corrects him.

 “Yeah, girl. Get good an’ wet for me. ”

 _Holy fuck._ Her pussy spasms against his digits as he curls them just right and she feels the heat start to build thick and fast in her stomach. He’s taken the time to carefully study her and he knows exactly how and where to touch her, in a couple of minutes he’ll have her sobbing as she comes all over his hand.

But that isn’t what she wants because what she wants is to make this about him for once.

Grabbing his wrist, she pushes his hand away. He lets out a whine like a kicked puppy and looks up at her helplessly until she pulls his hand up to her lips.

“ _Fuck,_ Beth,” His eyes are wild as he watches her suck his fingers into her mouth.

She swirls her tongue against his finger tip and tastes herself. The sweetness of her juices mixes with the bitter taste of cigarettes on the back of her tongue. His eyes are hungry as he watches her suck him clean.  He pushes his finger down onto her tongue and to the back of her mouth, his other hand on her hip, gripping tighter. Her cheeks hollow around him as she sucks harder. His jaws churning and his breath erratic as he watches her with rapt fascination. She didn’t think she could get any wetter but when she catches that look in his eye she swears she can feel her wetness dripping down her thighs. That look he’s giving her is so full of sin and promise, like he’s holding himself back from grabbing her and shoving his dick down her throat. She can’t take that look.

As her face flushes a vicious crimson, she reaches down to yank his fly open. Daryl makes a strangled noise when she grabs his dick and rubs her moist slit along the head, feeling his pre cum against her fluttering pussy lips. She understands now why he gets so affected when he sees her wetness because she feels the same way. No matter how many times he gets hard because of her it still gives her a rush just like the first time. Seeing her own desire mirrored in him and feeling completely in sync like they’re two halves of a whole waiting to be stuck back together again. The magnetism between them is thick and palpable, building up and up, threatening to burst.

She pounces, gripping his shoulders and using her momentum to force him down onto the cot. They both hiss as her pussy presses into his crotch, providing welcome friction.

His wide, surprised eyes stare up at her as she stares down at him.

Her hand falls to stroke his cheek. He's so beautiful, and he doesn’t even know it.

“ _God._ You’re amazin’, Daryl. You are. So amazin’.”

Those eyes, always so intense, like now, the way he's studying her. He’s looking up at her with eyes narrowed like she’s stopped making sense. When they first met, he’d rarely make eye contact with anyone at all, always looking down, but when his eyes did meet hers she used to falter under his piercing stare. Now it makes her pussy flood and his jeans are ruined.  

Her fingers dance lightly across his lips. When he’s around the rest of the family he doesn’t say much, and what does come out of his mouth is usually coarse and rough mannered. But when they’re alone the things he says to her, in that impossibly gravelling voice of his, make her blush. When they are alone, the things he _does_ to her with that mouth are unreal.

Beth shudders, she pushes her finger between his lips. At first his mouth tenses against her and confusion clouds his eyes for a moment before his jaw softens and allows her entry. Her fingertip presses against his tongue and she watches his eyes flash with a dark heat.

It might seem like this is for her, but she knows he gets off on using his mouth on her. There’s nothing that gets him harder, faster, than sucking on her nipple or her clit and hearing the moans that only he can drag out of her. She’s teasing him, getting him all wound up for her. He knows that, but they both know it’s a promise she intends to follow through on.

His tongue twitches beneath her curiously before his lips come together in a tight circle and he gently sucks her finger further into his mouth. It’s just like earlier, only this time the tables are turned. She watches his cheeks hollow around her digit, his cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass and it's the filthiest thing she's ever seen. Her pussy throbs as she watches his pupils dilate, mirroring her own arousal and then she feels his teeth bite down. Gentle at first and then harder, eliciting a moan from the back of her throat. God, she wants so badly just to scoot forward, sit on his face and let him drink all the juices of her cunt. As she feels his hot mouth wet against her fingers she’s imagining that it’s her clit he’s sucking on and her thighs clench around him in a desperate need for friction. _Jesus._ He must be thinking the same damn thing because his bitten nails dig into the flesh of his thighs, his eyes searing into hers.

Beth swallows audibly, and she rips her eyes away from his hungry gaze. Her heart is pounding unsteadily in her chest and she worries she’s going to have a heart attack before breakfast. Withdrawing her fingers from his mouth with a wet pop, she reaches down and fishes a condom out of his back pocket where he always keeps one. Her hands shake as she tears it open, shuffles back and rolls it over his cock slowly. He draws in a ragged breath at her touch, his hands remaining tight against her thighs. She can feel his sharp eyes tracking every move she makes, letting her set the pace, but thrumming with anticipation for what comes next.

Leaning forward so she doesn't hit the top bunk, Beth squats over him. Her eyes flutter shut and she lets out a strangled gasp as she impales herself on his hard cock. Daryl howls. _Fuck._ With her thighs barely parted, her entrance is impossibly narrow and she feels her walls burn despite her wetness as she thrusts down. She’ll be lucky if she can walk later. Her thighs tremble as she tries to catch her breath, taking a moment to adjust to his fullness.   

“ _Shit_ , girl _… s_ o fuckin’ tight… _Fuck_ ,” he grates out between clenched teeth and ragged breaths.

His hands reach up to grab her ass and spread her cheeks. Her pussy is on fire, heat radiating in consuming waves up her spine. She presses her hands against his chest as she grinds down, and starts to bounce on top of him. Suddenly each of her nerve endings lights up like a Christmas tree and it feels amazing, it feels _so good_ that she never wants to stop and they’ve only just started. She leans back as far as she can, trailing her fingers down to his taught stomach, so that his cock hits so deep and so hard inside her she whimpers.

His eyes that were heavy lidded flare open at the sound and he squeezes her curved cheeks tightly. She arches her back in response and gasps as his dick grinds against her clit.

“Jesus, Beth. _Look at you._ So fuckin’ perfect,” He pants as she rides his dick hard and fast, cunt aching like she's gonna tear in two. Despite hearing him say it countless times over, it still makes her grin and her stomach flip.

 _He’s_ perfect. She looks at this beautiful, hulking beast of a man falling apart beneath her, and it steals the breath right out of her lungs. He’s staring up at her, chest heaving. He’s _wrecked_. The desperate noises he’s making, the sweet torture in his face. God, he’s so beautiful it hurts to look at him. He's like something out of a romance novel, like the ones she used to read at the farm. All dark and brooding with his protruding collarbones and taught stomach. How can everything about a person scream sex?

She watches his impossible arms flex. _His arms_. Could they be any huger? Any more sweaty? Seeing the power in his arms is a startling reminder of how much he could hurt her. He never ever would but she is completely powerless against his raw strength. Only she isn't powerless at all. She's the one calling the shots and the control she has over him makes her feel dizzy, causes her heart to beat a little too fast.

She doesn't miss the gravity of what happened between them just now. She knows that showing her his back was a huge fucking step for them. That is must have been hard for him, but that he did it anyway. He did it for her. He might not say he loves her, he only said it -actually yelled it- at her that one time, but he is always showing her he loves her. She doesn't need to hear it. He's given her every part of him. He doesn’t need to tell her what she already knows.

Beth hears distant voices coming from outside her cell. _Shit._ Maggie and Glenn are coming back from night watch. What Beth really wants to do is to fuck Daryl's brains out all morning, but soon the rest of the prison will be awake and the noises he’s making are going to draw someone to her cell.

Daryl is too far gone to hear or care, his moans getting louder. Too loud for the cell block. He's usually quiet when they fuck inside the prison, but right now he's completely lost control. The thought nearly makes her come. She hisses, knowing she’s got this powerful man between her thighs and he’s consumed by her. Sweat gliding down her forehead and the curve of her back, she rides him harder and faster.

“Ah, _fuck_ , Beth.”

He's looking up at her with tortured eyes as she canters her hips against his, making his dick twitch inside her. She knows he won't last much longer.

“ _Beth_ … ‘M gonna… you need t’… I _can’t… Beth…”_

He’s trying to say something but she can’t catch it between his desperate pants. She doesn’t need to. She already knows that look. He doesn't want to come until she does. He's fighting back his release because he thinks she’s got to come before he can. Her heart aches because it’s so endearing, his need to please her, his need to make her happy and treat her right. Doesn’t ever think about himself.

Her palms slide up his chest as she leans down over him, continues to grind her pussy hard against him.

“Come for me, Daryl,” she whispers.

The breath falls out of him like a gunshot. With her permission, she feels him let go and he starts to unravel before her eyes. He’s a _mess_. Lust blown eyes, sweaty hair, gaping mouth and red cheeks. She sees it in his eyes, he worships her. He looks at her like she’s his whole world, like her touch gives him life and it almost pushes her over the edge.

Beth's pussy spasms and she bites her lip as she holds off her orgasm, but just barely. Coming right to the edge and dragging herself back.

She tightens her pussy walls around his cock until he growls and his arms start to tremble as she brings him to his release. She throws her hand against his mouth as he moans, hot and wet against her palm.

"Yes, Daryl, you’re so good, _so good_ ," she pants down at him through ragged breaths.

She feels him go hard and hot inside her, then she lets go. After holding it back for so long her orgasm slams into her, pounding in her skull and her clit. She convulses, her back arching violently, and, for a second, she blacks out.

With one hand muffling Daryl's animal noises, her other hand flies up to shove her knuckles into her own mouth and she moans against them.

He fights to keep watching her through heavy eyelids, eyes drifting in and out of focus. She gently rocks them through their orgasms, both panting, shivering with over stimulation. When she feels his body become boneless underneath her, she collapses against his chest with a sob.

Her entire body thrums with the aftershocks, her pussy burning, throbbing. A strong arm curves around her back and cradles her to him, pressing a kiss against her hairline. Her flushed cheek is pressing against his firm torso and she takes in a deep, shaky breath and lets his comforting scent wash over her, feels his heart thundering in his chest and wraps herself in him. Totally wiped out by the force of her orgasm, she melts into him.

“Dunno what I did to deserve you,” He whispers, stroking her hair, forcing her mind awake.

She turns her head to look up at him, and kisses the underside of his jaw. He glances down at her, studying her face as if to commit it to memory, as if he can’t believe she’s real. Her eyes narrow because he still doesn’t _get it._

“Look at me,” she says, her voice coming out throaty and raw, reaching up to cup his cheek and gently turn his face so that he’s looking directly at her. His eyes pulse nervously under the sudden ferocity of her gaze.

“You're amazing. I know you don't see that and it's frustrating as hell but you are and you make me feel amazing.”

The words pour out of her, her voice straining with a sudden wave of emotion in her desperation to make him understand.

“The world has fallen apart but I’ve never been happier and it's because of you. _You_ make me so happy, Daryl. That's what you did to _deserve_ me.”

She swallows hard as she finishes, wondering if she’s said too much, if she’s said enough. She prays that as connected as they are right now he can feel what she feels.

He looks dumbstruck, his eyes wide and his jaw slack as her words wash over him. Her eyes bore into his, begging him to get it, to see that she worships him. She wishes she could hold up a mirror and make him see himself through her eyes.

His arm tenses, pulling her hard against his chest. He holds her close and buries his face in her neck, pressing his lips to her pulse point. She smiles, knowing that he finds comfort in her pounding heartbeat and her familiar smell. He breathes her in, long and deep.

"Long as you're happy, I'm happy," he murmurs and holds her tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! Let me know what you thought in the comments!
> 
> What now??


End file.
